Soldiers coming home on Wednesday

The 303rd Military Police Company will return home to Jackson on Wednesday after a year-long deployment to Iraq.

Soldiers who belong to the Army Reserve unit are now at Fort Dix, N.J.. for "out-processing" after combat-support duties in the Iraq War.

Their mission included providing security for military convoys traveling to forward bases, a job that exposed them to deadly attacks.

Two of 170 soldiers in the company were killed and more than 20 were wounded, said Josh VanBuskirk, unit administrator at the Jackson Army Reserve Center.

"That's quite a high (casualty) rate for one unit," VanBuskirk said.

Soldiers in the unit also performed the duty of training Iraqi police, VanBuskirk said.

A parade and brief ceremony are planned to welcome the soldiers in Jackson Wednesday, although the time and parade route were not decided by Friday.

Those details should be known by Monday, said Army Capt. Aaron Jenkins of the 318th Public Affairs Operations Center in Forest Park, Ill.

Not all 170 soldiers in the unit will return to Jackson. About 70 will return to towns in Ohio and Minnesota where they are principally based, Jenkins said.

The 303rd Military Police Company mobilized in September 2006 for a second time in the Iraq War.

In 2002, the unit was assigned to guard prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.

For its second deployment, the unit was bolstered with the addition of troops from North Canton, Ohio, and Rochester, Minn.

Sgt. James S. Collins, 35, who was from Rochester Hills but last lived in Summit Township, died in combat Aug. 28 in Kirkuk, Iraq. In civilian life, he worked as a mechanic at the Army Reserve Center in Jackson.

Spc. Rachael Hugo, 24, of Madison, Wisc., died Oct. 5 when insurgents attacked with an improvised explosive device and small-arms fire. She was a college student studying nursing.

Homecoming for the 303rd Military Police Company will mark the return of all Jackson-based Army Reserve and National Guard troops deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom. For much of the past year, three Jackson-based units supplied 520 soldiers to the war effort.

The 107th Quartermaster Battalion returned home Aug. 4 with about 50 soldiers and about 300 members of the 1461st Transportation Company arrived home in Aug. 17.